Two months later.
The cold came slowly.
The first sign was the way the air stopped burning his throat when he breathed. The heat that had once shimmered over the dunes began to fade, replaced by thin winds that bit through the cloak and left his fingers stiff. The desert's colour changed with it—less gold, greyer, like the world had exhaled and given up trying to look alive.
Jinyue woke to it one morning and decided that if this world wanted to freeze him, it could at least offer him a decent meal first.
He was absolutely sick and tired.
Tired of the tasteless nutrient solution, tired of fibrous plants pretending to be vegetables, tired of eating things that looked like alien art projects.
His last scrap of dried meat had turned into salted cardboard weeks ago. It had been thin, brown, and supposedly "smoked." He chewed it as if it were a religious sacrifice, praying that, by some miracle, it might taste like something recognisable.
It hadn't.
Now, as he sat on the ship's ramp with the cold wind in his face, he stared out at the endless expanse of sand and muttered, "I would sell my soul for something that tastes like chicken."
"Transaction inadvisable," Cody said from behind him. "Soul transfer protocols remain unverified."
"I wasn't being literal."
"I am aware. I am still required to warn you."
Jinyue sighed and tugged his cloak tighter. "You're killing my appetite."
"You do not appear to have one left."
He ignored that. His eyes tracked the distant ridge where the sand met the darker line of rock. The first tracks he'd seen days ago had returned—clearer now, deeper, marked by the hooves of something alive.
Life.
The thought sparked a hunger that wasn't entirely about food.
******
Jinyue noticed the shift first in the mornings. The ship's interior was always cold, but now, when he stepped out, the sand was cool even under the sunlight. The change made him restless. The silence outside had stretched for weeks; now, faint echoes carried across the flats—movement.
At first, he thought it was the wind. Then he saw the prints.
They were fresh, pressed deep into the sand near the ridge line—three-toed, heavy, and wide. Bigger than any scavenger drone. The second trail was lighter, cloven, and scattered, like something that had moved in a hurry.
"Animals," he muttered, crouching beside them. His breath fogged faintly.
Cody stood behind him, one optic dimmed to a softer blue. "Affirmative. Local fauna identified. Activity consistent with seasonal migration."
"So, they come out when it's cold?"
"Likely. The reduction in surface radiation allows for broader movement."
He touched the print again, the faint ridge still warm from recent contact. "They're close."
Cody tilted its head. "Caution recommended."
He ignored that. He hadn't seen another living creature since he woke up on this planet. The idea that something else breathed here stirred something sharp in him—curiosity mixed with hunger.
The faint ache of his last dizzy spell still lingered behind his eyes, but it didn't matter. He straightened, scanning the ridge. The wind carried a low sound—half growl, half purr—from somewhere far ahead.
Jinyue's grip tightened around the strap of his pack. "Let's see what's out there."
******
He saw them two days later.
He had climbed a slope of brittle rock, slow and cautious, Cody moving behind him with uneven steps. The robot's gait had improved since their last scavenging trip; the limp was still there, but the creaking had stopped thanks to the oil they'd salvaged.
From the ridge, he saw them: two creatures prowling through the valley below. Their bodies were sleek, black, and plated along the spine like natural armour. Sabre-like teeth glinted when they lifted their heads. Their movement was smooth, predatory.
The air was cold enough that his breath came in clouds. He didn't move.
Cody scanned silently. "Predatory pattern detected. Classification pending. Approach not advised."
"I'm not approaching." He shifted lower, watching the way the creatures moved—graceful, deliberate, efficient. "Just observing."
A black shape moved against the fading light, silent and fast. It ran low, muscles shifting under a plated hide, the glint of teeth catching the last red of the sun.
The second creature—a grey deer with spindly legs and ridiculous ears—bolted ahead of it, kicking up trails of dust.
Jinyue crouched on the ridge and watched, half in awe, half in despair.
He wanted the deer. Not for scientific study, not even for survival—just because the idea of fresh meat had taken root in his brain like religion.
The feline, of course, got there first.
It pounced, sleek and efficient, crushing the grey body in one movement. Jinyue found himself staring at it with something disturbingly close to envy. The feline's satisfaction radiated through the still air, and he could almost taste the meat by proxy.
His stomach growled. Loudly.
Cody, standing beside him, hummed. "Emotional reaction detected. Classification: longing."
"Shut up."
He tore his eyes from the scene and muttered, "What am I doing? I'm not a wild animal."
"Statistically, your sub-species group is one of the most in tune with their more feline instincts."
That… explained a lot of embarrassing moments he'd rather not remember, actually.
"I meant metaphorically."
"Ah."
He exhaled, rubbing his temple. The absurdity hit him all at once. He—Lan Jinyue—former CEO, voted top CEO in the country thrice in a row, once feared by competitors, now glaring jealously at a cat over dinner.
It was pathetic.
He stood up sharply, the cloak snapping in the wind. "Fine. If a cat can do it, so can I."
Cody tilted its head. "You intend to compete with a predator native to this environment?"
"Exactly."
"Statistical odds of success—"
"Don't."
"—below seven per cent."
Jinyue smiled tightly. "Then I'll be the exception."
The sight of the animals had stirred a faint, instinctive focus in him. He could almost taste the memory—Jin'ar's memory, maybe—of crouching in another kind of terrain, pulling back a bowstring, watching movement through tall grass. The vision wasn't clear. It came like a dream he wasn't part of, yet somehow he knew what came next.
He blinked hard and the feeling slipped away, leaving only cold air and the faint tremor in his hands.
"Cody," he said quietly. "We'll need traps."
******
They began small.
Rope snares, rock triggers, shallow pits—primitive, but workable. Cody watched every attempt and offered correction with unflappable precision.
"Probability for failure is 90%," it said when Jinyue's first trap collapsed before setting.
"Then don't watch."
"I am programmed to assist."
"You're programmed to irritate me huh?"
"Observation noted."
The trap fell apart just as Cody had said. He sighed, gave up and then restarted the whole process once more.
It was messy, inefficient, and deeply frustrating. Cody stood by, narrating every mistake in what had to be the most irritatingly neutral tone ever designed.
"Your rope tension is inconsistent."
"Working on it."
"Trigger sensitivity below threshold."
"Working on that too."
"Probability of entanglement: minimal."
"Cody."
"Yes, Master Jinyue."
"Stop talking."
He worked until his hands hurt. The cold made his fingers slow, but anger kept him warm.
By nightfall, the first few traps were ready—or so he hoped. Cody's silent stare didn't inspire confidence.
"They will fail," the robot said finally.
"Optimism suits you better."
"It is not better. It is data."
"Then keep your data to yourself."
Cody hummed. "Noted."
They set three along the narrow basin near the ridge where the prints were most frequent. Cody calculated spacing down to the centimetre. Jinyue adjusted based on intuition. They argued for an hour. Both claimed victory when the final one looked halfway functional.
That night, the temperature dropped further. He sat by the ramp, arms folded against the cold, watching vapour rise from his breath. Cody stood nearby, servos whirring faintly.
"You should rest," the robot said.
"I will."
"Fatigue indicators are increasing."
He shot it a flat look. "I'm aware."
Cody's optic dimmed slightly. "You are unusually irritable."
"Blame the air."
"I shall note that."
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, fighting the heaviness creeping into his skull. The faint dizziness came and went now, a ghost of what it had been. Still enough to make him pause when he stood too fast.
He stayed outside until the stars bled across the sky, silver and sharp against the dark. He wondered if Jin'ar had ever watched them from this same ridge. The thought felt intrusive, like someone else's dream pressing against his own.
******
When the traps failed the next morning, he wasn't surprised.
Cody, however, seemed deeply offended on a conceptual level.
"Failure rate: one hundred per cent," it announced.
Jinyue crouched beside a snapped cord, jaw tight. "You don't have to sound so smug about it."
"I lack that capability. But data suggests you will benefit from iterative refinement."
He stared at it. "You mean do it again."
"Affirmative."
"Fine."
This time, he decided to do it properly. If he couldn't chase the animals, he'd bring them to him. He'd need distance, reach, and power.
"Cody," he said, "I'm building a bow."
Cody blinked. "Primitive technology detected."
"Efficient technology," he corrected. "I'll need it."
"Understood. Design assistance available."
******
When the next trash storm cleared, they went scavenging.
The landscape looked different every time the debris fell. The wind shifted dunes, buried some wrecks, exposed others. Cody led, scanning for usable material, his limp rhythmic and steady. Jinyue followed, pulling the small wheeled box behind him.
They found metal tubing first—thin and flexible enough to shape. Then a coil of filament wire, still intact. The jackpot came near the shadow of a buried pod: compressed alloy plating, light but strong.
"Suitable for limb structure," Cody noted, optical lights brightening.
Jinyue smiled faintly. "You sound almost excited."
"I lack that capability."
"You really misuse that phrase, don't you?"
Back at the ship, they worked through the evening. Cody projected schematics while Jinyue shaped the metal over the heating plate, adjusting with slow, deliberate motions. His hands were steadier now, stronger, though they still trembled when fatigue caught up.
Cody handled the tension mechanism, threading the filament with the kind of precision only a machine could manage. When it was done, the bow looked nothing like what he remembered from Earth—sleek, angular, reinforced with energy conductors that hummed faintly when drawn.
Jinyue tested the pull. The bowstring vibrated with a low note. "This feels more like a weapon than a tool."
"Correct. It is both."
Jinyue's aim with the advanced bow was terrible.
The first time he tried, the string snapped back and hit his wrist hard enough to leave a welt. The second time, the arrow went sideways and nearly skewered Cody's left optic.
"Your coordination is insufficient," Cody said after ducking.
"Thank you for that observation, Captain Obvious."
"Who is Captain Obvious?"
"A metaphor."
"Ah."
By the sixth attempt, the bowstring hummed correctly, but the arrow buried itself ten feet short of the target. Jinyue stared at it in disbelief.
Cody's lights blinked. "Would you like to adjust your aim?"
"I would like to stop."
"Request denied."
They practised for hours. The desert echoed with the sound of arrows hitting everything except their targets. When he finally managed to graze the edge of a crate, Cody recorded it as a "statistical anomaly."
By the end of the day, Jinyue was sweating, dizzy, and furious. His tail flicked in agitation. "I used to manage a trillion-credit company. Now I can't even hit a rock."
"Progress measured by domain," Cody said. "You are currently operating in a different one."
He groaned. "You're saying I've been demoted."
"Temporarily."
******
The breakthrough came two days later.
They'd gone scavenging after a trash rain, sifting through half-buried wrecks for anything usable. The air smelled faintly metallic; the ground still radiated heat from falling debris. Cody's limp was lighter now, his gait smoother since they'd found lubricant earlier that week.
"Scan complete," Cody announced. "Material: carbon alloy, potential for reinforcement."
"Good. We'll make the bow sturdier."
Cody tilted its head. "You could also use the parts to reinforce ship plating."
"I'd rather reinforce my pride."
"Ah. Inefficient but emotionally consistent."
Back at the ship, they spent hours rebuilding. Cody handled the measurements; Jinyue provided stubborn determination. When the new model was done, it looked somewhere between a bow and a primitive railgun.
Jinyue held it up with a sceptical look. "This looks illegal."
"Correct. In several systems."
He grinned. "Perfect."
...Turns out, his aim was still horrible. Bad enough for him to go back to plan A.
******
The creatures returned three days later.
This time, they set the new traps near the rock formation where the deer always ran. The idea was simple: let the feline chase, then scare it off with a flare. The deer would run into the narrow gap—and straight into the snare.
Cody calculated the angles. Jinyue loaded the flare. His hands trembled slightly from fatigue, but the excitement overrode it.
The sun dipped low. Shadows lengthened. Then—movement.
The feline appeared first, black and silent, tail low. The deer followed in panicked leaps, ears twitching wildly.
Jinyue raised the flare gun. "On my mark."
"Understood."
The feline lunged.
"Now!"
The flare shot skyward, exploding in a burst of harsh white. The feline yowled, recoiling from the light, and bolted in the opposite direction.
The deer, blinded and panicked, fled straight toward the rocks—straight into Jinyue's trap.
The sound of the mechanism snapping shut echoed across the ridge.
Jinyue froze for half a heartbeat, then broke into a grin so wide it startled even him. "It worked!"
Cody's optic brightened. "Confirmed. Target secured."
"I did it." He turned, laughing breathlessly. "We! did Cody! We actually did it!"
Cody regarded him with what might almost have been amusement. "Congratulations, Master Jinyue. Your predatory capabilities have increased."
"Translation: I win."
"Temporary condition."
"I don't care." He exhaled, still laughing. "We have meat."
"Correction: you have meat. I subsist on solar and electric charge."
"Then you'll watch me eat."
"Observation mode activated."
That night, the air filled with the sharp scent of roasting meat. Jinyue sat cross-legged near the heat plate, watching the flesh brown and hiss. His mouth watered shamelessly.
Cody stood nearby, processing readings. "Nutritional content: high protein, low toxicity."
"You mean edible."
"Affirmative."
He tore into the first bite the second it cooled enough not to burn his tongue. It was tough, slightly gamey, and slightly metallic—utterly glorious.
He chewed, swallowed, and let out a low sigh. "Tastes like victory. And chicken. Kind of. Maybe beef. Or whatever falls between the two."
Cody watched, lights pulsing rhythmically. "Your emotional output has increased significantly."
"I'm happy, Cody. This is happiness."
"Documented."
He laughed again, leaning back against the ramp, watching the stars overhead. "You know," he said between bites, "maybe I can survive here after all."
"Data supports that possibility," Cody replied. "Assuming you do not faint again."
He groaned. "You had to ruin it."
"Correction: reality check."
He tossed a bone toward the sand. "You ever heard of celebrating?"
"I lack that capability."
"Then watch and learn."
He bit into another piece, eyes half-closed in satisfaction. For the first time in months, the emptiness didn't feel so vast. The food was terrible by any normal standard, but it was warm, real, and his.
Cody's optical light dimmed in standby, humming softly like approval.
Jinyue raised the last scrap toward the sky. "To survival," he said. "And to proving that I'm still me."
The wind carried the faint sound of Cody's voice: "Acknowledged. Celebration logged."
He smiled. "Good."